Salsa singer Marc Anthony nabs cop role on 'HawthoRNe'

Marc Anthony joins the cast of "HawthoRNe" when it returns for its third season Tuesday on TNT.

Marc Anthony joins the cast of "HawthoRNe" when it returns for its third season Tuesday on TNT.

Jacqueline CutlerZap2It

For a kid from the projects of El Barrio who was in bilingual classes and who stuttered, Marc Anthony has done all right.

He is the most popular salsa singer in the world.Married to Jennifer Lopez, Anthony also becomes a series regular on TNT's "HawthoRNe" when it returns for its third season Tuesday, June 14.

"I have been really lucky this year," he says. "I thought there was a cap as to how great things can be."

At 42, Anthony is in a wonderful place. He has achieved his goals but knows there's still work to do.

"There comes a time where you pretty much have scratched every itch, for lack of another phrase," he says. "I have pretty much done everything that I thought I would or could. But what ends up happening is I want to do great work now.

"If I am going to do it, it's not about just doing it anymore," he continues. "I want to enjoy it. And so you look for challenges within what you do, and you look forward to enjoying the process and it being good work. The only thing left is bungee jumping, which I am not looking forward to."

He's sold more than 11 million records, been in Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out the Dead," among other films, and acted on Broadway in "The Capeman," and he continues to sell out arenas. It all began with that sultry voice.

"I used to stutter," he says. "And when I sang, I didn't stutter, and singing became my safe haven. Someone asked me, 'When did you decide to become a singer?' I didn't formally decide. It was just something I was just born to do. It was where I lived."

Where he physically lived was East Harlem, in the projects.

"It was a really colorful time," he says. "I miss the noise, the bustle."

Constantly working and with 3-year-old twins, he's not lacking in noise and bustle, but taking a steady gig was attractive.

"I have always wanted to do episodic TV, and I had been talking about it for the last year and half with Jennifer because I could be in one place," he says.

In the character's introduction last season, Renata was ready to arrest Hawthorne for interfering in a foster care situation. By the end of that episode, they went out for a pancake dinner. There was great chemistry between them, and a scene on a park bench showed two characters sitting closer than colleagues would, at ease with each other.As Renata, Anthony has just the right swagger.

"To play Renata on a daily basis has to be one of the coolest jobs I ever had in my life, especially with the arc of the season," he says. "What actor on the planet would not want to play Renata?"

Executive producer and writer John Tinker says the only problem is they wish Anthony's schedule allowed for more.

"Both character and actor have a worldview unlike anyone on the show, and it not only allows us to explore a quite different point of view but forces the characters to confront things they otherwise wouldn't confront in the confines of James River Hospital.

"I've talked to Marc about other things he would like to be a part of," Tinker continues. "He has a real narrative sense; he has an inherent dramatic structure about storytelling that is unique."

Separately, Anthony brings up how singing and acting are both different ways of storytelling.

"Acting is an extension, very much like singing to me," Anthony says. "It is storytelling. I am very comfortable in the storytelling department, only when I sing I have four minutes to tell the story, and when I am acting I have a lot more time."

Even in the quicker version, he gets his point across. "I Need to Know," Anthony's breakthrough ballad, was a massive hit. When he sings in concert, even in an arena as impersonal as Madison Square Garden, Anthony connects deeply with the audience.

There, he ushered in New Year's 2001, when the world and his hometown were so different. For a man who has performed thousands of times since, that concert -- in which he wrapped himself in the Puerto Rican flag, -- "was a party," he says. "I felt like I was with all my cousins, that's how it felt for me. It was the time of my life. It was home."

As memorable as that concert was, his wife says he constantly makes those connections. In December she was talking about her then-upcoming job on "American Idol" and had just returned from Mexico to watch Anthony in concert.

"It never gets old for me, and it never ceases to amaze me how he is one of the best performers," Lopez says.